Where is Hope?

Hope is in the small moments, the getting ready, the car rides, the waiting between extra curricular activities, the drop offs and pick ups. These are the opportunities for conversation, exploring and learning who you are and who the people you are doing life with are. Hope is in the big moments, the things you’ve been praying for, the answers to hard questions.

Hope is all around us. It’s in the singing of the birds even on the cold days. It’s in rustling of leaves on hot summer nights. It’s the unexpected sticky hug from a toddler. It’s the serious kiss passing your spouse in the hallway. It’s opening an email with great news. It’s getting the job or creating your own. It’s laughing with your kids at the dinner table. It’s in the quiet, cleansing, deep breaths. It’s found every where you are but you have to be able to look for it.

It’s not just watching for the silver linings of bad situations but it’s genuinely finding something to be grateful for no matter how bad the situation. It’s finding something worth going after when it feels like everything is gone.

Hope is a mysterious thing, because like I said it’s all around us and yet we can’t buy it at the store or put extra in our pocket. It’s a commodity that is uncommon amongst most people. It’s a skill that is learned from childhood and walked out in adulthood. But don’t worry, if you came from a background of “Debby Downers” don’t worry!! Hope is a teachable skill and you can learn to find it everywhere.

Hope is in the perfect parking spot at the store and it’s also in the news from the doctor’s office. Hope is in bringing home a new baby and as horrible as it may seem it is also in the celebration of life for another person passed. Hope is found everywhere and anywhere. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some genuinely, authentically awful situations that we will find ourselves in however, if we have trained ourselves to look for hope we will find it.

In the Bible hope is mentioned 129 times. Hope hangs out mostly with faith and love. “So now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13. Faith and hope are complimentary. Love is necessary. Faith is grounded in the reality of past, things that have been proven, character. Hope is grounded in the future; looking to the reality is expected and yet unseen. Love is the glue that holds it all together.

If you want to find the beginning of hope you have to find the beginning of love.

And next week we will talk about Where is Love?